Determination and power plays, including 11 made 3-pointers gave Lakewood’s varsity Leopards the advantage in a cross country rival game with Union Friday night. The Leps came on on top 63-50.

While Union fell in their final regular season game, the Spartans pulled off a 10-4 year and a second place finish in the Tri-County Conference.

“Give coach (Sylvester) Pittman and his team all the credit, they came ready to play,” said Union coach Tim Pope Monday. “They were much more aggressive than we were on both ends of the court.”

The two teams played pretty evenly in the first quarter, which ended at 16-all. But Lakewood’s momentum continued, while Union’s did not, and the Leopards took the advantage in the second quarter and headed to the locker room at the break with a 32-24 lead.

Union had a spurt of its own in the third period, scoring 19 points, but they couldn’t hold Lakewood down, and the Leps headed into the final period up 54-43.

“We had a lot of distractions going on, and I did a poor job of getting our team focused and ready to play,” Pope said. “We will get back to work in practice and try to get our defensive effort back. There is no way we can be successful giving up 11 3-point goals in a game. Hopefully we play with much more intensity Tuesday night.”

Lakewood’s coach did not call in stats for the Leopards.

Bakeem Murphy led scoring for Lakewood with 14 points. Natrone Banks had 11 and Damarius David added 9.

“It has been a good year for us, going 10-4 in the conference and finishing second,” said Pope.